Ah, our little green friends…the printed circuit board. Taken for granted until they fail, circuit boards are key to the operation of virtually everything these days. So if you are suspicious, or even absolutely certain, that your circuit board is the problem, you may need some advice as well as circuit board repair or replacement.

Always remember the Electronic Axis of Evil: Moisture, Heat, and Dirt. If you can avoid these, your circuit boards will last longer.

Four Top Reasons For Circuit Board Failure and Tips to Identify The Problems & Causes:

1. Discrete Component Failure. (Includes capacitors, resistors, zener diodes, diodes, GALs, PALs, IC’s, Microprocessors, Driver Chips) Causes of failure: normal component aging, excessive heat, over or under voltage surges and sags, rises in ESR (equivalent series resistance) values, corrosion and drying (esp. of electrolytic capacitors). These problems can sometimes be visible to the naked eye such as blown/burned components or obvious corrosion, but usually these items need to be checked with meters.

2. Power Component Failure. (Includes transformers, transistors, IGBT modules, rectifiers).  Causes of failure: heat, over or under voltage, normal component aging. Some problems can be visible such as exploded components, or, more often, they could look perfectly good and require meter testing of each component.

3. Trace Damage. (These are the conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces etched from copper/silver coated sheets and laminated onto the non-conductive substrate) Causes of failure: power surges, lightning strikes, use of inappropriate acid core solder causing shorts, contamination such as metallic dust. Trace damage is often visible to the naked eye and can often, though not always, be repaired.

4. Physical damage - This is plain, old damage such as when your NASCAR-wannabe forklift driver skewers it like a sausage on a grill. Don’t think it doesn’t happen…we’ve seen it! This is sometimes repairable; replacement is often the only option.

Repairing printed circuit boards can be a bit like surgery: lots of testing, probing and prepping followed by precise repair work and retesting before the patient is ready to go back to work. The good news is, your board is most likely repairable.

Worried about the California Energy Commission’s (CEC) requirements for efficiency and no-load power consumption? Confounded about why two seemingly-same power supplies can possibly perform differently?

If power supply selection, power supply repair, or other power supply issues are concerning you, then you will want to obtain the new, third edition of the  Power Supply Technical Guide by XP Power.  The plan was to boil all this information down for you right here to make it easy, but having just read this new guide myself, I can tell you… it is so jam packed with useful information that I have thrown my hands up and am just giving you the link. 

You can find out current, need-to-know info about:

Power Conversion

Input Considerations

DC Output Considerations

 Thermal Management

Reliability

Legislation

Technology Editorials

Best of all, it is FREE.  You can download it as a PDF or print it out if you are one of those paper-lovin’ folks (I admit, I like to turn a page and haven’t yet succumbed to the Kindle’s wiles).   Here it is guys…tear it up!  http://www.xppower.com/pdfs/TechGuide2010.pdf.

Call us at ACS Industrial Services  if you’ve got power supply questions or questions about any other type of  industrial electronic repairs.  We’re here to help!

Players have fun while experiencing how their reliability decisions will impact performance down the line and the overall business. Since this a virtual situation, your team can enjoy the challenge without worrying  about disastrous results.

It works like this:  players are members of a failing company.  Then, the game takes them through a series of real-life problems that require  reliability solutions to win the ABB Reliability Challenge.  The virtual manufacturing world gives players a sample of what companies may face in the real world. 

No matter what your plant produces, there are fundamentals that are critical to increasing production profitability that apply universally.  The game teaches several of these fundamentals using real-life examples. 

Sure beats another box lunch lecture!  Sign me up!  Maybe now I can beat my sons at Call of Duty 4 ….OK, probably not, but I’ll have fun trying.  You can check out the game at www.abb.com/reliabilitychallenge. Just so you know, I don’t own any stock in ABB and I’m not getting any commission here, just thought you might find this interesting.

Speaking of ABB, remember, we repair ABB electronic equipment from ABB  monitors to ABB motors.  If your ABB equipment is giving you a headache, send it in to the ACS tech team for a free evaluation.   Or call our helpful customer service team at 800-605-6419 if you’ve got questions. We are standing by to help you.

I just checked out my new, totally cool android phone and sure enough, there are my paw prints leaving a “smudge trail” where I unlock the unit.  My phone is no big security breach, but this could affect touchscreen interfaces such as bank machines, voting machines, or any other public or industrial touchscreen requiring a graphical pattern password. 

While I wouldn’t lie awake worrying about this, don’t write it off either.  The underbelly of society seems to have no shame and no lack of perseverance in acquiring stuff that does not belong to them.  If you’re using secure touchscreens in your business, consider switching to an alphanumeric password on a keyboard if possible.  Or, you can also have users wipe their hands across the screen a few times or use a touchscreen-appropriate cleaning cloth.

Researchers are now investigating other devices that may be susceptible and various other types of smudge attacks such as heat trails caused by the heat transfer of a finger touching a screen.  Something new to worry about…

If you are worried that your industrial touchscreen monitor needs repair, send it in to our expert tech team for a free evaluation and quote.  We repair most touchscreen, LCD and CRT monitors including Allen Bradley touchscreens, ELO, Fanuc, LG, NEC, Microtouch, Okuma and many other touchscreen manufacturers.  Check out our website, www.acsindustrial.com  or call our helpful customer service staff at 800-605-6419.

Before it comes to that scenario, consider this:  We all know HEAT is the root of all evil when it comes to electronic equipment.   Add some MOISTURE and DIRT and you have the electronic axis of evil and disaster!

So, practice prevention first by:

-  keeping your electrical cabinets CLOSED

-  keeping your FANS  in good REPAIR

-  making sure those cabinent FILTERS are always CLEAN

Eventually, most drives will experience overcurrent alarms or deviation/function alarms.  Avoid swapping top boards to troubleshoot – yes, we know, many of you do this and it usually works out ok.  However, it’s a risky move.  Bad boards can blow the power modules which then blow the top boards and you end up with more than one machine down!  And you thought you were frustrated BEFORE! 

If you want, you can check for the correct base drive voltages on the top board without DC bus voltage.  This can help identify the location of the problem.  Call your OEM and find out how to check the power modules with an ohmmeter. 

If you are past the warranty date (you kept that information handy, right?) and need third-party service on your drive, send us your drive for fast and reliable drive repair.  We offer free evaluations, a warranty on both parts AND labor, rush services for emergencies, and excellent customer service.

Lighting accounts for nearly 24% of the total electricity generated in the U.S. today.  That’s huge!  The DOE’s goal is to lower U.S. electricity costs by 33 percent by 2030, and at the same time, reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

SSL uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and has the potential to be 10 times more energy-efficient than incandescent lighting.   As manufacturers look for ways to reduce their energy costs, solid state lighting is likely to get a lot of serious consideration.

The Wall Street Journal reported that venture capital firms are beginning to focus on the lighting industry, with the expectation that the market — in particular LEDs and lighting control sectors — will grow significantly in the coming years.

One major problem that is being addressed is that LED luminaires are very heat sensitive.  Excessive heat or inappropriate applications can dramatically affect performance.  Well, we certainly know that heat is no friend to electronics of any kind.  I’ve blogged about that before!

If your industrial electronics lose a battle with heat, send them in to our expert tech team.  Remember, the repair form is right on our website and the evaluations are always free.  Whether you need power supply repair, servo motor repair, or virtually any type of industrial electronics we are up to the task.  We are here to get you back up and running!

If you don’t pay up front, you will pay down the road.  Again and again.  And you will be kicking yourself in the a– every time you call the repair guy.

Inexpensive CNC machines have less horsepower and therefore the spindle stalls more often.  They have narrower linear guides, less ballscrew bearings, no oil chillers on the spindle, less and smaller bearings in the spindle, less safety interlocks, and, on top of all that, they are much less rigid which is the number one cause for CNC machine crashing and subsequent downtime. 

Eventually, even the best CNC machines experience problems.  Most machinists and operators are not trained or equipped to repair CNC equipment.  For the electronic repairs, you will need an industrial electronic repair shop experienced, at a minimum, in troubleshooting, alarm codes, servo and drive problems, electrical faults, PLC ladder troubleshooting,  DC motor problems, axis load or binding, solenoid/relay/contact testing,  power supply problems, axis brake problems, chuck problems, relay board problems, fixture setup, control & parameter issues, hydraulics and pneumatics, and door and safety interlocks.

Whether you are a major manufacturer or a hobby CNC user, make it a priority to purchase the best CNC equipment you can possibly afford.  Ask a lot of questions before you buy, ask to see the equipment operating in someone else’s shop, and call an expert industrial electronic repair shop if and when your CNC machine develops problems. 

The ACS Industrial tech team includes expert electronics technicians and machinists to service all types of CNC equipment including Yaskawa, Matsura, Cincinnati, Allen-Bradley, Siemens, Brother, Fanuc, Haas, Hardinge, Hurco, Ingersoll, Mitsubishi, Mazak, Mori Seiki, Yasnac, Okuma, and many more.  We offer a warranty on parts and labor and rush service is available upon request.  We are here to get you up and running!

That’s no surprise to me.  The U.S. is an amazing melting pot of resourcefulness and determination.  True grit! 

The study lists 58 economies according to 328 criteria that measure how the nations create and maintain favorable business conditions.  Singapore, Hong Kong and the U.S.  are followed by Switzerland and Australia as the top five.  Sweden, Canada, Taiwan, Norway, and Malaysia round out the top 10.

China rose to 18th showing that it is no longer dependent on foreign markets buying its inexpensive exports.  Other emerging economies were India, 31st; Brazil, 38th; and Russia, 51st.  The surprise is Greece.  Despite being in economic agony, they actually improved in the 2010 ranking from 56th to 46th.  Who was at the bottom you ask?  Venezuela was last, preceded by Ukraine, Romania, Argentina, and Croatia. 

Let’s go back to that part about resourcefulness and true grit.  You rely heavily on your industrial electronic equipment.  If it’s not working, your workload  and output are impacted.  We can help you get your industrial electronics repaired and back online fast.  Remember – repair if you can, replace if you must.  Now that’s being resourceful!

Reliability was followed, in descending order, by quality, safety, maintenance, service, price, throughput, technology, noise, speed, and “green”.

Maintenance ranked 4th out of 11 so we know it’s pretty high on your list.  Nobody wants equipment that is difficult or excessively expensive to maintain.  Downtime is lost time and lost time is lost money.  

Save money in the long run by purchasing quality industrial electronic equipment with a good warranty.  And when that warranty runs out, or the OEM does not provide responsive service, send your repairs to a reliable expert. 

The ACS tech team is trained and experienced in the repair of virtually all types of industrial electronics including drives, PLCs, power supplies, controls, encoders, servo motors, CNC equipment, printed circuit boards, touch screens, stepper motors, CRT monitors, test equipment and more.  We service most brands including Yaskawa, Okuma and Mitsubishi.  Rush service is available upon request.

With the economy just beginning to climb out of the basement, saving money is a  high priority for all of us.  The pain of this recession will stick with us for a long while (I promise I will not get political here! That would be a whole ‘nother conversation.  LOL).  

So, let me reiterate the absolute necessity of repairing your existing electronic equipment whenever possible.  For a lot less money – sometimes as much as 75% less than the cost of new – you can repair.

OK, I know you’re busy.  Maybe you’ve got lots of equipment and weren’t sure whether the item was still under warranty (we can help track warranty information) or maybe you had 20 line operators hounding you for repair or replace decisions and it seemed way easier to just buy new that week (we can help solve this dilemma with our rush service).  

And have you taken a look at your shelves full of  “does not work” equipment with dust on them in your storage area?  We can repair most of that equipment. 

And if not, we can dispose of it properly so that you can rest assured that even if it was not repairable, you are still being environmentally responsible.  Environmental requirements being what they are today, this is not to be lightly dismissed.

As you have probably discovered, some OEM’s can be pretty twitchy about the warranty coverage.  (We’re not twitchy at all -you get a 12 month warranty on the whole unit, not just the repair!)

Repairing your equipment will reduce your overall expenses, keep you environmentally responsible by reusing, and will reduce your equipment inventory.  It’s all good and you can’t go wrong by going the electronic repair route. 

Check out our website at www.acsindustrial.com or call our customer service team directly at 800-605-6419 for more information.